I want to start a list of outstanding persons who have used their professional status to fight injustice, who have thus disturbed power and suffered significant consequences.

It may be good to say more about it. At first sight the idea looks quite sensible, but on second look my mind gets filled with questions:

* Why does it matter that the person uses his or her professional status?

* What exactly it means to fight injustice? (One person’s injustice may look like a non-issue to another (“You had bad luck” or “You must have been immoral”). As a result, appeals to justice tend to make people look for consensus, which, in turn, leads toward mindless populism.)

* In the nineties, Prof. Tony Martin was severely attacked for publicly stating some facts within his professional role. Martin was able and willing to fight back, and, as a result, he didn’t suffer serious consequences. Should he be counted out? And to what extent was his fight for historical truth a fight for justice?

Even if we accept the list as it stands, we notice some disturbing aspects about it: Norman Finkelstein recently signed a petition in support of western interventionism in Syria. Desmond Tutu was a leader in a struggle that... replaced a white oligarchy with a black one, the latter being far less competent than their predecessors; the country was conquered by neoliberalism... it's a long story. Bradley Manning - all I know about Bradley Manning is from the mainstream media, official state channels, and a single “leak”; all these being notoriously unreliable.

1.) Prof. Dr. Vandana Shiva, Founder, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. Trained as a physicist, she is fighting for changes in the practice and paradigms of agriculture, intellectual property rights, biodiversity, biotechnology2.) Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, an Iraqi-American physician and peace activist exposing the truth behind the phony wars on terror3.) Arundhati Roy, indian novelist, writer and political (anti-gloablization) activist. Her novel The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize in 1997

It is easy both to put forward the house-hold names for this, but I would put forth names of people who seem to stand for the interests of the common man - even while the 'common man' is lost in the media - somewhere.

I would put forth some unknown and some controversial names, mostly because they stand small against the inertia of the un-informed and the politically powerful.

In no particular :

- Graeme McQueen professor McMaster for his public stand on 9/11 truth and his on-going commitment to documenting the contentious finding related to the many alleged criminal acts of that day. I am thinking of the Toronto Hearings and the Radcliffe lecture.

- John McMurty professor Guelph for ethical stand on the 9/11 truth and public speeches to the significance of justice within society.

- Anthony Watt of Watts Up With That for continued provision of a forum against Al Gore's corporatist global warming tax.

- Max Keiser from whom learned of the great and ongoing financial plundering of our communities by what seems to the financial interests. Without Max's interview with Dr. Michael Hudson of Mississouri and Dr. Steve Keen I would not have known of the extent of the plundering.

- Alex Jones for brining a mega phone to the Bilderberg meetings. I fear that without the sensational media coverage generated by Jones, the Bilderberg meetings would still be private affairs since 1954.

- James Corbett of the www.corbettreport.com which provides an alternative perspective to some news events.